Locally developed Maruti Vitara Brezza to be sold globally

Maruti Suzuki is gearing up to launch its all new Vitara Brezza at the upcoming Auto Expo that is to be held next month. Launching the Vitara Brezza will set a milestone as it is the first vehicle to be conceived, designed, developed and validated in India by Maruti.

“Vitara Brezza was given as a challenge to the Indian R&D team,” Executive Director for Engineering CV Raman said. “It is engineered for global markets, and will be exported to related markets in South Asia.”

In India, Maruti has a target to sell two million vehicles by the end of the decade. Its R&D centre at Rohtak in Haryana will play a crucial role in fast-tracking model development, testing and validation. Maruti started developing in-house engineering capability with facelift of models like the Zen, Alto, WagonR and the Omni with support of the parent in 2000. In 2008, Maruti started working on a full model change for the top seller Alto. The vehicle was launched in India in 2012. In 2010, the company started working with SMC on global models like the Baleno premium hatchback, Ciaz mid-size sedan and the S-Cross cross-over utility vehicle, which were recently launched in India

“Historically, we have contributed to vehicle development processes at Suzuki. But this is the first time that all decisions and judgements during the development of the product were taken in-house at Maruti. Suzuki did not participate… It was a tremendous learning experience and has enhanced significantly our capability and our role in global product development in SMC,” Raman said.